A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.

Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

If you must take care that your opinions do not differ in the least from those of the person with whom you are talking, you might just as well be alone.

There is no method by which men can be both free and equal.

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

He may be a patriot for Austria, but the question is whether he is a patriot for me.

Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.

The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.

A real leader is somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.

The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.

Whether for good or evil, it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. In the politics of a democracy, the shortest distance between two points is often a crooked line.